Keychain problem causes "too many open files" error

[zakuska]

Hello,

My desktop OF has not synced with MobileMe for about 30 hours. The orange sync icon continues to turn with an exclamation point in the center of the two turning arrows. I had trouble getting this to work in the past and I just changed the OmniFocus.ofocus to old_OmniFocus.ofocus (thanks to a suggestion on this forum). But unfortunately it didn't help this time.

I also did a reset of the Syncing properties and then did another sync. I saw that it created another OmniFocus.ofocus sync file on iDisk, but the OF Sync properties menu said that the sync failed.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I am syncing via Bonjour in the meantime.

Thanks,
Adam

[whpalmer4]

Hello,

My desktop OF has not synced with MobileMe for about 30 hours. The orange sync icon continues to turn with an exclamation point in the center of the two turning arrows. I had trouble getting this to work in the past and I just changed the OmniFocus.ofocus to old_OmniFocus.ofocus (thanks to a suggestion on this forum). It didn't help this time.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

Thanks,
Adam

Click on the exclamation point to pop up an error notification describing what went wrong.

[zakuska]

Click on the exclamation point to pop up an error notification describing what went wrong.
I clicked on the exclamation point and it showed me a dialogue box with the message:

Unable to synchronize database with server.
Operation could not be completed. Too many open files

Is this saying I have to many items in my OF program?

[zakuska]

I found another post on the OmniGroup forum that is probably related to this.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=9973

In this thread, one of the members posted this information that is from the Troubleshooting Common Issues page.

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/support/troubleshooting/

If your database is too big, it will be too large to fit in the iPhone's memory. If you are also using OmniFocus on a Macintosh (the most likely way to encounter this problem), consider archiving some of your data by choosing "Move Old Data to Archive" from the File menu. In general, we recommend trying to keep the number of actions on your phone down below a thousand.

I have 722 actions, so this could be the problem. I don't have 1,000 actions, but I'm thinking that I have copied some larger files into the comments fields.

I will see if I can pare this down. I have been using OF also as a list manager since nothing like OmniOutliner is available yet.

I really appreciate your help. I will check back to see if there are any more suggestions.

Adam

[zakuska]

I just found out that I have TWO databases. I have OmniFocusDatabase and OmniFocusDatabase2. The second database was created about an hour after the last sync with MobileMe, Saturday at 8:19am. Since then I have not been able to sync.

I found the two databases at my HomeFolder/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus

Would it just try to sync with the last created database? Am I supposed to delete one?

I appreciate any insight anyone can give.

Adam

[whpalmer4]

The OmniFocusDatabase2 in the Cache directory is a cache of your data for faster access. It will be replaced if you use the File->Rebuild Database command.

[whpalmer4]

I clicked on the exclamation point and it showed me a dialogue box with the message:

Unable to synchronize database with server.
Operation could not be completed. Too many open files

Is this saying I have to many items in my OF program?
No, this is a message from the operating system stating that you've got too many files open and no more can be opened (which is a problem when you go to sync, as the network access is done through a file access). Use Keychain Access to see if you might have multiple entries for me.com, as seen here. (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=10426&highlight=open+files)

[zakuska]

No, this is a message from the operating system stating that you've got too many files open and no more can be opened (which is a problem when you go to sync, as the network access is done through a file access). Use Keychain Access to see if you might have multiple entries for me.com, as seen here. (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=10426&highlight=open+files)
I'm looking in my Keychain under "All Items" and I only see one thing that says "idisk.me.com (emailname@mac.com). That is under "Name." It says it's an "Internet Password" under the heading "Kind", and it's a "login" under the heading "Keychain".

And now I've really messed things up because my OF application won't display anymore after I must have made an error in trying to figure out this syncing issue. But that's now on a different thread.

But it looks like I only have one entry for me.com.

[SpiralOcean]

The smooshing script has done wonders for me.

My syncing slows down after about a month of use. Running the smooshing script dramatically improves the syncing. From sync times of 5 to 10 minutes down to under a minute.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost...87&postcount=1

[Andrew]

Too Many Open Files can be caused by any number of problems, but assuming that it's a sporadic or one-time thing, rebooting should recover.

[philbolli]

I am also unable to use the me.com syncing feature any longer.
I also get the error: too many files open.
Rebuilding the db and rebooting the mac does not help.
I also have only one entry for the idisk in my keychain.

I am now syncing with bonjour but this can't be permanent. What do you omni guys need to look into that problem and fix it?

I ran the lsof command and got this output as a sample:
OmniFocus 654 xxx 1251u IPv4 0x1017e66c 0t0 TCP 10.0.1.199:55155->idisk.me.com:https (ESTABLISHED)
With omnifocus establishing a lot of ports beginning at TCP 10.0.1.199:53785->idisk.me.com:https (CLOSED)

and it is doing that for several minutes before the error "too many files" open occurs.


Regards,
Phil

[SpiralOcean]

Have you tried the smooshing script?

I was getting the same error you were until I tried this script. It is different than rebuilding the DB.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=44087&postcount=1

[philbolli]

Problem fixed:

omnifocus was trying to connect multiple times until the error too many files open occurs.
The problem was fixed in my case by:
signing off mobile me in the pref.pane and deleting the idisk key in the keychain. After that omnifocus asked me again about the username and pw of mobile me and synced without problems.

Hope this helps some of you

[errotaburu]

YES!!!! Thanks Phil i've been fighting with this issue all night till i see your solution

[baldmeistr]

This solution works great--except now if I try to save the password in my keychain, it won't sync at all. If I save the password to my keychain, the sync spins for a long time and I get an error. Once I delete the item from my keychain, I'm good again. Basically, I can't save the password, and have to re-authenticate every time.

This is acceptable, but annoying... does anyone have a solution?

[whpalmer4]

This solution works great--except now if I try to save the password in my keychain, it won't sync at all. If I save the password to my keychain, the sync spins for a long time and I get an error. Once I delete the item from my keychain, I'm good again. Basically, I can't save the password, and have to re-authenticate every time.

This is acceptable, but annoying... does anyone have a solution?

Send email to the support ninjas, and they'll help you get it straightened out. You aren't seeing normal behavior.
omnifocus@omnigroup.com is the address.

[bankomeister]

I have had to use this fix (signing off mobileme and deleting keychain) 4-5 times in the past 6 weeks. I end up losing data because to start the sync again I have to choose which database to use. This is not a solution. What's the real problem and how to I keep it from happening?

[Brian]

Bankomeister, I'm sorry for the trouble here - I think the keychain issue is a bit of a red herring in this case, though. Are you having the problem that Ken talks about in this post (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=66330&postcount=27)?

If so, you'll want to upgrade all your macs to the 1.7.3 build that we made available, and then carry out the steps in my post on the following page of that thread to get back up and running.